Simona Carini serves recipes and Italian words related to food

July 25, 2007

pollo arrosto / roast chicken

Talking about Sunday lunch (pranzo) in my previous post made me think of another dish that was only featured in that meal: pollo arrosto. We would buy it at a store, una rosticceria, actually 'the' store, because we had one favorite place. I am not sure whether it is still in business, but I hope it is.

As a child, I loved going with my father to the rotisserie to get the roast chicken: I loved the smell of the place and the look of the food that was made and sold there. I usually got to carry the warm bag with the chicken and would bask in the heady smell that came from it. I alternated between eating the breast (il petto) and the thigh (la coscia). I remember the taste of rosemary and the crispness of the skin. To this day, smelling rosemary reminds me of the pollo arrosto from my childhood.

If a person is a pollo, he or she is a simpleton, someone easily taken in. Something or someone that fa ridere i polli (literally: makes chickens laugh) is ridiculous, or acts in a ridiculous way. When I am able to predict exactly what my husband will do, he always asks me: "How did you know?" to which I answer: "Conosco i miei polli." Literally it translates: "I know my chickens" and it means that I am familiar with their ways, so I can predict what they will do.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

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pollo arrosto / roast chicken

Talking about Sunday lunch (pranzo) in my previous post made me think of another dish that was only featured in that meal: pollo arrosto. We would buy it at a store, una rosticceria, actually 'the' store, because we had one favorite place. I am not sure whether it is still in business, but I hope it is.

As a child, I loved going with my father to the rotisserie to get the roast chicken: I loved the smell of the place and the look of the food that was made and sold there. I usually got to carry the warm bag with the chicken and would bask in the heady smell that came from it. I alternated between eating the breast (il petto) and the thigh (la coscia). I remember the taste of rosemary and the crispness of the skin. To this day, smelling rosemary reminds me of the pollo arrosto from my childhood.

If a person is a pollo, he or she is a simpleton, someone easily taken in. Something or someone that fa ridere i polli (literally: makes chickens laugh) is ridiculous, or acts in a ridiculous way. When I am able to predict exactly what my husband will do, he always asks me: "How did you know?" to which I answer: "Conosco i miei polli." Literally it translates: "I know my chickens" and it means that I am familiar with their ways, so I can predict what they will do.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

March 15-June 6 Comments

On March 15, 2014, I switched to Disqus comments. I then discovered that comments on posts older than January 1, 2013 appeared only in some cases. The solution offered was not satisfactory, so on June 6, I disabled Disqus. Between June 7 and June 20, I manually entered Disqus comments into TypePad, so they appear with a date later than the original.

To use any of the photographs published in the blog permission must be obtained from Simona
No food was (nor will ever be) discarded in the process of taking the photographs, i.e., everything was consumed either immediately or in due time